


A public nuisance and a rotating door

by ShannonXL



Series: Shit My Sherlock Does [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Addiction, F/F, Fem!Sherlock, Female Sherlock Holmes, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, POV Original Character, Rehab, Rehabilitation, girl!sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 14:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannonXL/pseuds/ShannonXL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't fight an addiction. You go to rehab. You fall a little bit in love with Sherlock Holmes. And you don't come out the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A public nuisance and a rotating door

**Author's Note:**

> This series now has a corresponding tumblr. http://shitmysherlockdoes.tumblr.com/
> 
> The password is 'vaticancameos'

 

She doesn't share. That's the first thing she teaches you. 

You've been here for months, and you can still feel the cravings, crawling around in the back of your head like vicious spiders. Sometimes they tickle, and sometimes they shake, but always, they're moving, trembling like earthquakes, squealing like sirens, burning, itching, gnawing, _needing_. 

She has no interest in your mundane addiction. She doesn't say it, but she shows it. 

She's not like you. She's beautiful, for one thing. She's tall, too. Skinny, but not the sick kind of skinny, the kind that makes you wear your skin on your bones like a dress that doesn't fit right. She waltzed in, of her own free will, and she's going to leave when she's done. She's not going to stay here for months, without getting better, she convinces you of that, it's the second thing she teaches you. She's not like you, because she's not a lifer, and that entrance isn't a rotating door when she walks through it, she isn't going to swing back around for a second try, or a third, or a fourth. She's not wearing the plain gray sweatpants permanently, you can tell by the way they ride up on her ankles that they don't really belong on her. 

She's going to leave you. She doesn't belong to you. 

 

You need to bolster up your courage to talk to her. You ask for her name. Instead, she tells you:

"Methamphetamine, third, no, fourth stint in rehab. Addicted at birth, but you didn't dedicate yourself to the habit until later in life. Mid-twenties. You don't cook it yourself. You're not proud of what you've had to do to get it. You want to leave so you can use again, but you're not allowed, this is a court-ordered confinement. You don't have any children. You might be sober one day. You're never going to be cured."

She says it all so fast. If it wasn't your personal history, you'd probably miss all the important details, too caught up in the way her lips move, the way her eyes dart up and down, scanning everything about you in seconds off of, what? The way you stand? The damages of your skin and teeth and hair and eyes? The fact that you are alone, that you don't get the same privileges as she does? You have no idea what gave you away. You're sure she knows you think she's beautiful. 

Beautiful people always know they're beautiful. 

She won't tell you where she's from or why she's here. You hold out until group, thinking she'll have to say something, but instead she rattles off more facts about all the people there, going around the circle until it's your turn. And she looks at you. And she smiles.

"Something's changed. You want to be sober now. You didn't, before."

The facilitator has already been begging her to stop for a while. But you can't look away. You want more. You want to follow this woman wherever she goes, waiting for these new little details to spill out like a cup that's got a crack up the side, leaking and trickling and devastating everyone in the way. 

You smile, and nod, as the facilitator finally gets someone to lead her away, so she'll stop disrupting group. 

 

You're not supposed to be walking around the halls after lights out, but you've heard her doing it, and you're determined to find out what else she knows. So you wander down to her room when you know the person at the front desk is reading instead of watching for sleepwalkers, and you knock on the door, because it's polite. 

She knows you're the one knocking before she tells you to open the door. Before you can ask what gave you away, she explains that the problem with your foot causes a "distinct pattern" in the sounds you make on the floor when you walk. You've never noticed it before, but you will spend the next week listening to the way you walk, and the way other people walk, and mostly, the way _she_ walks. 

You ask her what she's doing, and she explains fingering, it's the thing you do on the violin, but they've "confiscated the instrument", so she has to practice without it. She says it's something to do with the calluses on her fingers, that she can keep those up but without the muscles it will be pointless. 

She asks you how long you've known that you were a lesbian. You tell her that you're not. She smiles, and whispers, "not yet, then", and continues her fingering, awkward with the invisible violin. 

You think it's strange, being with someone who seems to know your whole life story, but it's not a bad kind of strange. You know what that's like. It's dusty bedrooms and boarded up windows and custody weekends and bad trips and waking up in the hospital, it's methadone when that's not what you want, it's finding out you're pregnant by losing the baby, it's cold sidewalks, it's itchy clothing, it's a rotating door. 

She tells you it will only work if you put in the work. It's the third thing she teaches you. It will be the last thing you listen to. 

 

After a month, you're surprised she's still here. She's argumentative, and "difficult", as the nurses say. She doesn't like people lying, and she always thinks everyone is lying. She doesn't want to hear anyone's sad story, probably because she already knows it better than the person telling it. It makes it so our stories aren't _ours_ anymore. The way she tells them, without getting upset, without crying or yelling, or shaking, the stories sound like they should hurt you less. You wish that's how it felt when you told your sad story. You wish it, because you've told it over and over again, and you still think it's sad. 

You wish you didn't remember it. You're thirty years old, you don't want to be scared of the monster in your bedroom anymore. 

The fourth thing she teaches you is that you don't have to be. 

She refuses to tell her own sad story. She says it's been "classified by the British government", and even the nurses are willing to let it go after a while. She does say that she uses because she's selfish, and because she's irresponsible, and because it's easier than "living properly", but that's just what the nurses want everyone to say, so you don't know if it's true or not. You want it to be true (because if she can say it then you can say it, and maybe get better), but you also want it not to be true (because if people like her can't make it out alive, there's no chance in hell for people like you), and you can't decide what you want more. 

So you watch her, slouching in the wobbly metal fold-up chair, chewing on the inside of her cheek, eyes darting up and down, reading people like they're books in another language.

She speaks Greek. You can hear her practicing at night. 

 

You tell her she was right. She asks you what you mean, "specifically, what", and you tell her about everything. That you don't have any kids because you lost them all, that you're going to keep using when you leave which is why you can never, ever leave, that you're a little bit in love with her and that the courts ordered you here because they don't have any hope for you out in the real world. 

She asks you what made you think this wasn't the real world. 

You ask her if you're allowed to kiss her and she tells you that it's really up to you, because she doesn't care, either way. You think that's a little hurtful, but you kiss her anyway. You wonder why she knew you were a lesbian before you did. You wonder if that's what this means, or if this means anything, or if she just said it to get you to kiss her, because she's clever that way. 

She tells you that getting clean is difficult for everyone, and you don't know how she knew that you needed to hear it. 

She rubs the skin of your mangled foot and she doesn't grimace or look away. 

You find out later that she's married, that she's a detective, that she's a bit of a criminal, that some of her secrets are actually classified because they have to do with terrorists in Europe, that she solves people like puzzles, that she was addicted to cocaine and that she's been sober before, that she rotated through a different doorway before ending up here, with you. That maybe heroes aren't perfect after all. 

You tell her that you think she's beautiful, and she tells you it doesn't matter, that beauty doesn't matter. 

The fifth thing she teaches you is how to have sex like a lesbian. How to give head like a lesbian. How to wear the word lesbian like a proud beacon, like a beautiful word, like a comfortable sweater. 

Beautiful people always know they're beautiful. But some of them don't know what 'beautiful' means. 

 

She leaves after six months. She doesn't say where she's going, only that she's not going home. The nurses warn her, tell her that she needs a stable environment, free of triggers, that she can't go "gallivanting about", "chasing after criminals", that she needs to take care of herself. She ignores them. 

You ignore her when she tells you that you have to put in the effort, but her words echo after she's gone, and you start to think about it, about trying, and those thoughts start to become louder than the thoughts about where your dealer might be when you get out, and what you'll have to do to get some quick money once you're out, and you actually start thinking about _really getting out,_ for good. 

 

You look up Sherlock Holmes, years later. You find out that she died. You think you understand, but you know that you probably don't. You live with a woman, and it sits well with you, like a comfortable sweater. You know you're sober, but never cured. You know you're alive. You know you might not be, were it not for Sherlock Holmes. 

You don't think she has anything left to teach you. You know you're probably wrong. 


End file.
